People’s Climate Movement Supports Today’s AFGE Rally to Protect EPA

Key organizations Involved in the People’s Climate March in 2014 Now Working to Resist Cuts to Environmental and Other Federal Programs

Washington, DC — The Peoples Climate Movement (PCM) supports today’s AFGE’s rally and its call to protect the EPA’s progress on addressing climate change and public health. The Trump Administration and its allies are working to destroy our environmental and health safeguards through proposed budget cuts and anticipated executive orders.

“Today’s rally is another example of how our movements and organizations need to support each other in the face of attacks by the Trump Administration and Congress,” said Paul Getsos, National Coordinator, PCM. “Communities impacted by these cuts are standing with those workers whose lives will be hurt by being laid off from jobs that keep our communities free from pollution. Proposed cuts in the EPA and other federal agencies will decimate programs that are critical to address climate change, keep our air and water clean and support environmental justice initiatives that protect low-income communities. When those in power attack workers, they are also attacking our family members and neighbors in our community.”

“We must band together to stop the devastation of climate change,” said Aura Vasquez, Director of Climate Justice. “These proposed cuts impact millions of people on the front lines of a dangerously changing climate, especially low-income communities and communities of color. More than ever, we need to take to the streets at the March for Climate, Jobs and Justice on April 29 and show the impacts of carbon pollution on our communities and our health – and by doing so, demonstrate the real threat of climate change.”

The PCM is a broad-based ground-breaking coalition of more than 50 faith-based, labor unions, indigenous, civil rights and environmental justice groups working together to build bold solutions that tackle climate change, rooted in economic and racial justice. It grew out of the largest climate march in U.S. history in New York in September of 2014. The PCM has demonstrated itself as a massive and wide-reaching movement in opposition to dangerous steps that puts people and the planet at grave risk.

With a 100 days of action culminating in mass mobilization on April 29, the 100th day of the Trump presidency, this coalition will leverage their power once again to resist the Trump administration and corporate interests’ efforts to thwart or reverse progress towards a more just America.